Alcohol Prohibition in the US and Women
I started watching the series "Prohibition" on PBS.
Alcohol consumption in the US had always been commonplace, but when the distillation process took hold, those people who used to have low-alcohol beer for breakfast, lunch, dinner and before bed were suddenly getting snockered on whiskey.
And at least at first, drinking this way was almost always done by men. Men were the ones spending their money in taverns, and without their participation in the home's economy, women and children were carrying the weight of supporting the home. As a result they'd lose their homes or even go hungry.
Of course when women rose up against liquor it was assumed by some that women were just a bunch of spoilsports. But the cost to families by this new way of drinking was pretty steep and women ended up paying a lot of it.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that, right after they presented this view, they then blithely go forth to claim that immigrants to the US were unhappy with Prohibition. They didn't want others telling them what to do and they enjoyed drinking. I have to wonder if this is just the voice of the immigrant men.
Alcohol consumption in the US had always been commonplace, but when the distillation process took hold, those people who used to have low-alcohol beer for breakfast, lunch, dinner and before bed were suddenly getting snockered on whiskey.
And at least at first, drinking this way was almost always done by men. Men were the ones spending their money in taverns, and without their participation in the home's economy, women and children were carrying the weight of supporting the home. As a result they'd lose their homes or even go hungry.
Of course when women rose up against liquor it was assumed by some that women were just a bunch of spoilsports. But the cost to families by this new way of drinking was pretty steep and women ended up paying a lot of it.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that, right after they presented this view, they then blithely go forth to claim that immigrants to the US were unhappy with Prohibition. They didn't want others telling them what to do and they enjoyed drinking. I have to wonder if this is just the voice of the immigrant men.
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